First Look: “The Adventures of Tintin”

Our first glimpse of Spielberg’s (and Jackson’s) mo-cap Tintin movie. They are still afraid to show us their faces – and I’m still not entirely sure why this film had to be motion capture – but it’s looking quite good nonetheless.

Jerry, you stole the words I was going to write! It’s like they’re terrified to show the faces making me wonder if the motion capture on the faces are going to be yet another journey down the uncanny valley!

snip2354

They only show Tintin’s face on the last shot. I demand an answer.

Emm

All aboard the ship to Uncanny Valley! :(

I’m looking forward to “The Goon” though.

Bob

You can’t judge a finished film by its trailer; only whether you would want to see it or not. And based on this — I do. Could be a winner.

You can’t judge a finished film by its trailer; only whether you would want to see it or not. And based on this — I do. I’d like to see more!

Pieter

We’re talking here about Steven Spielberg & Peter Jackson, two of the most gifted, powerful and succesful directors of all time and everyone here keeps thinking they don’t know anything about “The Uncanny Valley”…

You guys should really call them because you seem to know a lot more about film than Spielberg & Jackson combined.

In summary: this looks great! Thumbs up!

Emm

I guess you’ve forgotten about Jackson’s king-sized turd “King Kong.” Not everything Jackson turns out is spun gold. Same for Spielberg.

And Robert Zemeckis used to make wonderful, award-winning films. And then he got sucked into the Uncanny Valley. :(

http://www.sexymecha.com Hal

Kin Kong was solid, despite dragging a bit I’ll stand by the Kong vs. 3 T rexes as one of the most amazing set pieces in any blockbuster ever – nothing in, say, AVATAR can touch it for dynamics and inventive cg camerawork. Methinks you are pushing it with “turd” monikers. Besides, the man made MEET THE FEEBLES, DEAD ALIVE/BRAINDEAD, HEAVENLY CREATURES and put the greatest “sheep being blown up by a bazooka” scene in the history of cinema in his first film BAD TASTE. If you’re going to rip on a Jackson film rip on LOVELY BONES, that one was pretty terrible on most counts and had little to offset the negatives. That said TIN TIN is right up both their alleys and couple STEPHEN MOFFAT and EDGAR WRIGHT as screenwriters and this is about as sterling a pedigree as I could imagine, uncanny valley be damned.

Peter H

No sign of emulating Herge’s style (elegant flat areas and simplified, clearly deliniated details). This is full three dimensional, fully rendered in light and shade and with full camera movement exactly like any live-action film, without any reference to comic strip visualisation at all.

(I’m not bothered by that, but the original hype was all about creating Herge’s world on the screen!)

So this is just another photorealistic rendering of not quite realistic people in a slightly plastic world. So nothing to get excited about there!

Now it all depends in whether the story is told well.
That is, as well as a well-made live-action film might have done it.

I take it that was Tintin in the last shot – I doubt that he looks much like anyone’s mental image: even the quiff had been ‘realised’ out of existance. Still – I suppose the film is merely the promo for the computer game…

Popular culture seems to love destroying the soul of of comics lately, letÂ´s hope these lousy trends implode soon.

Pete Bangs

“So this is just another photorealistic rendering of not quite realistic people in a slightly plastic world. So nothing to get excited about there!” Which is exactly what’s put me off mo cap movies to date. I can’t get into the movies because I can’t switch my brain off from recognising the bizarre plasticity of everything and getting to caught up in that. Won’t be seeing this, maybe on DVD from the local library later on down the line.

Conor

Well there at least seems to be some attempt at stylization, meaning at least it doesn’t veer into the uncanny valley to the same degree as the Zemeckis travesties.

http://www.wardjenkins.com Ward

Tintin: The Secret of the Uncanny Valley!

Skip

I realize that it’s motion capture, and mars needs moms lefty a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. However before anyone judges the trailer too harshly remember that this is only a teaser trailer, also it’s directed by Speilberg. For those two reasons I’m willing to give the film the benefit of the doubt.

http://www.pauloralvarado.com P Alvarado

Speilberg also directed Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Jabberwocky

I liked Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. >_> And for all that people are complaining about King Kong, it wasn’t that terrible, either. Not as fantastic as LotR, but not a travesty of film, either.

Clint H

Tintin’s face is kinda weird, but I’ll still give this film a chance.

snip2354

Looking at this again, why is this on Cartoon Brew? After all, it’s live-action! :P

Are they afraid to show faces or are they intentionally hiding them because this is a teaser and that’s the one thing everybody wants to see?

http://www.sexymecha.com Hal

Pretty sure they’re intentionally hiding them to build “suspense” for the reveal of the character. Personally, I think there could have been a better money shot at the end (think how epic most Indy reveals are) than him next to a porthole, but that’s just me.

Ergo

Yeah, since it’s our first real look at the character, you’d think they would’ve revealed something more powerful. The current one, especially in terms of displaying a readable emotion, just falls flat.

hmm

How are they afraid to show his face when there’s a 3 second closeup of it? Of course theyre going to focus on action, it’s a teaser!

http://www.lawrencejackson.com Law

I’m excited about a Tintin movie, but another family film forced into the semi realistic 3D mold is a real let down for me. The great charm of most cartoons is how much they leave to the imagination in their visual simplicity.

It would have been awesome to see cel shading or some other artistic direction explored in an effort to stay true to the feel of the comic.

Instead I got the kind of deja vu that makes me wish I hand’t been there when I see the trailer/teaser… *shrug*

-L

Paul K

Did you see the part where the ship wrecks over the waves and crashes into sand dunes?

That’s a visual metaphor for how this movie will likely be received by audiences.

Mr. James

Another film franchise that is a sinking ship is the Pirates of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Saw an advanced screening of that stinker on Tuesday and let me tell you folks, if you go see it LOWER YOUR EXPECTATIONS. It’s pretty awful. IMHO.

jordan reichek

well, i’m not going to comment one way or another about what’s on the screen or about what the film may be in general.

HOWEVER, i wonder if there’s a state of ‘animation shame’ that live action directors who venture in mo-cap/otherwise fully animated styles might have.

in other words, if the characters and environmental design mimmick live action fairly closely, they really aren’t doing a ‘kiddie’ film…that it’s open to a more respected audience?

i dunno. i generally love Spielberg’s stuff. i just don’t see how this more realistic approach helps a property that sprang from specific drawings. where’s the charm of the original?

the French and Japanese maquettes i’ve seen of Tintin over the years seem to really capture Herge’s work in three dimensions while still holding the coolness of the drawings…it’s something that we don’t see in life.

imagine Peanuts done this way by Joel Schumacher? yipes.

i just wish some of these directors would ask if comic properties can suffer from too much “organic” drapery just for the sake of seeming more…live-actiony?

Steven M.

I think they’ll save the reveal for when the movie releases, with which the audience will drop dead from the ugly monstrosity before them.

Clutch

Why do we have to show dead people moving at Christmas time all the time?

Bud

Yeah. Can’t they save that for Easter, the normal time of the year for dead people to come back to life?

http://www.bruandboegie.co.za Mike

Tintin’s face at the end … okay, may sound bad, but he looks like a pedophile. His eyes are small, its the hairstyle, the spaced-out glassy look in his eyes and his baby smooth skin that make me think that. He looks like … an adult trying to be a kid. I’ll probably still watch it because I really like the TinTin comics but based solely on this, if I was a kid I may be screaming ‘STRANGER DANGER’ in my mind if I saw a dude like that in an alley.

Manu R

Proves yet again the hardest feature in any CG program to master is the delete button.

http://rafatoro.blogspot.com Rafa

So Tilda Swinton is playing Tintin?

John

Haters are going to hate!

Gray64

Looks like it could be interesting, but…yes, it does beg the question why, of all things, screen capture 3D cgi? You could perfectly emulate Herge’s style in traditional 2D or a combination of 2D and cel shaded CGI, or some creative computer animation. If you wanted a 3D world, why not just do a live action film with CGI special effects? What on earth is gained through motion-capture other than seriously weirding people out?

http://kelseighn.blogspot.com Kelseigh

After all the trouble they went through to make everything else look real, the plane crash ends up looking like cheap model work.

Who exactly was crying out for this, aside from Spielberg himself?

Cody S

What does it matter who was crying out for it?

Spielberg and Jackson wanted to make it and they have the money and clout to do it. If you wanted to build model airplanes and sell them – and you had the ability to, why shouldn’t you? There isn’t much creativity or craft in only producing things people are “crying out for”. Why not just let the market decide “who wanted it” and leave it at that?

Empire is cautiously optimistic about the last shot where Tin Tin’s face is revealed:

“It’s hard to tell from an almost-still, or the short flash we see in this trailer, but he doesn’t appear to suffer from dead-eye syndrome.”

Vik

There are some high-quality screencaps on the Empire website. Go check them out.

I hate to say it but the Tintin in that final shot does NOT look really look like the character. The big eyes remind me of Astro Boy and Tintin’s nose looks wrong. He doesn’t look like himself when he’s rendered so realistically.

And the shot of Snowy on the steps made me cringe. Snowy’s eyes were completely lacking in personality. The comic book “button eyes” really added to the cuteness of Snowy. Perhaps it will be different when the dog is moving/hopping around (do they mocap dogs?) but I’m not feeling good about Snowy at all.

Also, IMO (and I’m a big Tintin fan) that out of the entire collection of Tintin stories, that they picked some of the weaker ones. I guess they were hoping to catch onto the PotC pirates craze as a hook for the kiddies. Perhaps kids who have never seen the original Tintin comics might like this movie.

I just hope that film doesn’t degenerate into what most Hollywood action films have become…scene after scene of people running away as stuff explodes or people shoot at them. That’s all the awful “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” was and that film totally stunk.

Ergo

Snowy is animated, not mo-cap.

Pieter

It has been a long time since I read The Secret of the Unicorn but something keeps puzzling me.

At the end of the trailer, you can hear Daniel Craig/Red Rackham say “who’s that man”? and then someone answers “That’s Tintin!”. If this implies that Red Rackham meets Tintin somewhere in the film, I cannot imagine how Spielberg transported our hero to a 17th century ship? From what I remember of the comic-book is that Red Rackham is only seen in relation to one of Haddock’s ancestors.

Does anyone have more information on this?

Mahesh

I’m pretty sure that is one of the present day villains asking the question to one of his henchmen.

Chris

To be honest, Pieter, I think that Daniel Craig’s line (and it is definitely him) has been taken out of context and chopped for the purpose of the trailer. The “That’s Tintin” line said by another character more than likely occurs in a completely different scene to the one Red Rackham is in, as a guess…

This doesn’t look bad at all! I think it looks much nicer than the first material that we saw. It looks like they’re putting a lot of care into this production!

The dead-eye problem shouldn’t be such a big concern. They’re bound to look more life-like than single dots!

wgan

we still get some hope if WETA is behind this

Ergo

It’s Tintin. Not TinTin, not Tin Tin, not Tin-Tin or any other of the weird versions everyone keeps coming up with. Like any other name, it is a signle word with one capital.

http://elblogderg.blogspot.com Roberto

My first thoughts:

-I’m not a fan of Herge’s drawings. I know they are good drawings but I find the characters he draws boring to look at. That’s why I have read very little Tintin and a lot more Asterix, cause Uderzo’s drawings and characters are full of life and funny to look at.

-Herge’s style wouldn’t work especially well in 3D anyway. The line is the most defined part of his drawings.

-Life action has been tried before and the actors looked a little ridiculous with the clothes and hairdos.

- That’s why motion capture doesn’t look like such a bad idea.

Second thoughts:

-Realistic comics work in life action while ‘comedy comics’ don’t. Asterix doesn’t work in life action cause Depardieu would never be as fat as Obelix, and he won’t have the same nose. That kind of thing makes the characters less funny.

-Although its drawings are ‘humoristic’ Tintin is more of an adventure comic with some little comedy here and there, so we won’t loose a lot if the characters don’t look ‘so funny’. Also Herge was obsessed with details in the backgrounds. What can be more detailed than photorealism?

Thoughts about the trailer:

-This may be the same technique Zemeckis is using but so far I find it a lot more convincing. The movements of the characters are not too awkward and the eyes look more lively. There also seem to be more taste in the details. They don’t make characters extremely ugly like Zemeckis usually does (the kid in Mars Needs Moms).

Thoughts about motion capture:

-As much as I dislike the last Zemeckis’ movies and as much as I think certain movies shouldn’t be done in motion capture I’m not certain that the technique should be used for special effects only. I love cartoony cartoons more than anything else but I can understand people liking photorealistic animation, since there are photorealistic paintings and sculptures. Who am I to invalidate that option or the advance of the techniques?
I’ll complain if, while watching Tintin, I feel the same awkwardness I felt when I watched Zemeckis movies, cause many times in those features I just don’t get the intention of the director. There were supposedly serious scenes in Beowulf and Christmas Carol that felt comedic because of the strange movements.

So far Tintin looks ok at that. The characters that are supposed to be funny (Milu, Thompson and Thomson) seem to move funny and the others (Tintin, the bad guys) seem to move more dynamic.

I don’t know what function should be the ‘adequate’ for motion capture but this movie looks like an interesting experiment that seems to look less ugly than Zemeckis’ works.

But maybe I’m just biased cause I don’t like Herge’s drawings that much…

I dunno. I can’t work up much enthusiasm for this. I just have the idea that this was a concept whose time passed a long time back, probably in the late ’90s.

http://www.bruandboegie.co.za Mike

Hmm…thanks for that, I never knew that at all. Nice to know. A buddy of mine figures that with Spielberg AND Jackson working on this, its in really good hands and the guys know their stuff. I think sometimes comic-book adaptions to screen can lose a whole whack-load of the stuff that endeared them to audiences in the first place, especially when translated into a whole new format, like Garfield mixed with real life in 3D, or Sonic the Hedgehog in an animated series. I just wanted more of the same – 2D Garfield from the comics … but animated. Its too … different and bears only a passing resemblance to the original material. In fact I can’t really think of any property that got it really right, though I like the Spider-Man movies.

Anyways, interesting to know this was Herge’s personal wish.

http://www.ailhadoceu.com.br Ceu D’Ellia

I’m afraid such explanation, that you consider obvious, does not stand up.

The Obvious

The name “The Obvious” is used ‘tongue-in-cheek” and isn’t meant to be taken quite so literally. What I wrote in my comment was meant to convey some background information on the production history of the film. The contents of the comment probably don’t “stand up” because facts don’t have legs.

Sorry about that.

Spencer

My reaction:

Mo-Cap is NOT REAL.

The Obvious

Of course, and neither are CG set extensions, CG animals or props, or prosthetics in “live action” films. Realism and real are two different things, and I think the aim was to create something “realistic” and not “real.” This was never going to be a neorealism “Tintin” film.

Blue screen blues, how wondrous new film making technologies seem to have currently killed off the magic & art of film making.
—
Lets hope film makers acquire some RESTRAINT and TASTE in the implication of these and other technologies in the years to come. Currently all the dials are set to ELEVEN and are staying there.
—
Dear Mr Spielberg, it’s like you’re no longer interested in actually making films that we might enjoy. And that you’re simply more interested in seeing how fast you can make us cry.

Reed Farralone

Jackson’s “King Kong” wasn’t as big a misfire as “The Lovely Bones”. What a mess. Talk about not knowing what parts of a book to use or to leave out. “Tintin” should work but the filmmakers’ terror at revealing the main character only about seven seconds before the trailer ends tells us something. Hopefully this thing will amount to more than the more dead people at Christmas prediction of several posts ago.

Mark McDermott

I think what concerned the Brew was the still several hundred posts back of the strange, doughy mass that was supposed to represent Captain Haddock’s head. If that was fixed (and couldn’t pros like Spielberg and Jackson have noticed the problems before they let that still loose) then maybe that’s a good sign.

http://merks-art.blogspot.com/ Merks

Don’t show the faces! It creeps out the kids and enrages the fans!

The_Anim8r

I appreciate what “the Obvious” sates a few posts above me. BUt even if there was no element of respecting Herge’s wishes in the choice of medium for this film, i wonder, how loyal should an interpretation be to its original source..if at all?
Or can we just accept one artist’s (Spielberg/jackson here) re-imagination /interpretation of another artist’s work, in their own preferred medium (film), using their preferred tools (Mo-cap).
That way there will be more surprises (sometimes good, sometimes bad). And after all, even Spielberg & Jackson can take away my original “bande dessinee” from me!:)

http://danielmaraya.blogspot.com Danny

Oh man, with Edgar Wright and Steven Moffat writing?! If not for the uncanny valley effect, this movie would be an unstoppable force!

Ergo

Yeah, the mo-cap stuff aside, every name attached to this just makes me look forward to it more.

Jane

This should have been made in stop motion with CGI effects.

But it wasn’t and what we have here is dead-ish. The eyes still look dead, the faces still look bad and on top of that the colors/light of this movie are really drab. Looking at the pictures on Empire everything there is so much blue. It’s like they said

“We have complected control over this world, what colors should bring to it?”

“I like blue”

“I like blue too, let’s tint everything in blue!”

Justin

set aside the wishes and over all. mo-cap.

lets look at the details. of what tin tin is.

exotic places
mystery
action
and ground suspension of disbelief

the trailer seemed to show all of that.
the movement of the characters are that of frames from the comics and some from the cartoon. from the early 1990′s
-
granted the screen shoots of the characters faces look pleasing and does feel like a a real version of the Tin Tin Cast. My only criticism is that Tin Tin himself is to thin, he has a rounded face and no define cheek bones, and he has a curved nose not a narrow nose.
-
But the post production renderings look great, so I want to appualed the folks in set modeling, texture, lighting and comping, for all the long hours.
-
TO address the lack of faces. It might be that give sense of “who is Tintin”. But it does give me an eh-erk, while the characters may look beutiful they won;t act buetifully.
However the compensation for the lack of facial mo-cap maybe hidden with camera angels and directions of lights, that could be very dramatic, and give a suspenseful narrative.

Andrew Kieswetter

It looks promising. I wonder if Rastapopulos (sic?) is the villain and will Bianca Castafiore and General Alcazar make appearences?

http://kreatedbykrause.blogspot.com Marie

First, even for a teaser, this was weak; there was no sense of the characters or the story. The editor seemed to select every non-storytelling scene to increase the “mystery” but it only succeeded in making me say, “Wha’ theâ€¦?” Second, I don’t understand why the creators didn’t go full live-action or full animation. At this time, mocap in movies just doesn’t work, especially for humans. Why not just accept that limitation? This one will be a Netflix rental for me [can't help but be curious :)]

Ergo

The problem with mo-cap is that it is half live action, half animation… But it doesn’t take the best of both worlds and combines them. No, it takes the worst.

Animation comes from a long history of illustration. We push poses, we create strong silouettes, the motion is pushed into a place that isn’t real, but is totally believable. Mo-cap is limited by the physicality of a real actor’s performance.

Likewise, live action cinema, the joy comes from it all being so real, tangible and tactile. All of which goes out the window in mo-cap.

The reason Gollum and King Kong looked so good wasn’t because they were motion captured, but because the motion capture was just the beginning. Each shot still had an animtor in there to push things to where it needed to be. I some cases, the motion capture information was thrown out altogether and replaced by pure animation. That seems to be forgotten by so many news sites I’ve seen.

http://www.ailhadoceu.com.br Ceu D’Ellia

Thanks for the trailer. Now I can save my money to best stuff.

http://www.ailhadoceu.com.br Ceu D’Ellia

…save my money FOR… an English Dictionary, probably…

http://zeteos.blogspot.com/ mick

this is not worthy of a remark.. (he remarked)

http://jessicaplummer.blogspot.com Jessica Plummer

You guys, I don’t understand what all the uproar is about. I thought everyone realized that Hollywood is just out and out trolling us now. For the LULZ. Also, monies.

Matt

“A man’s gotta be angry about SOMETHING” – a Sad Rule of the Universe

Donnie

Looked good until that last second mo-cap face. Just shoot it in live action. Why make an animated film if all your going to do is make it look as life-like/ creepy as possible?

Royce

I’ve no particular interest in seeing this movie. While I like Tintin I don’t think a live-action/CG mix was ever the way to go. On the plus side maybe Nelvana will finally release their animated series on Region 1 DVD finally to ride the film’s coattails.

http://dtoons.com/conroy Failing Art Student

Actually, they’re doing that.

http://kicreativestudio.blogspot.com/ Ki Innis

Like the saying goes, “Just because you CAN do something doesn’t mean you SHOULD.

Spielberg would have been better off just directing Tintin in full live action with simply good production design, strong performances and good direction.

That’s all Steven. That’s all you had to do. And everyone would have loved you for it.